Alleged Iranian plotter pleads not guilty

NEW YORK, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- A suspect in an alleged Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia's envoy to the United States on U.S. soil, pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court in New York.

The plea was entered by Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, one of two Iranian men implicated in the alleged plot to assassinate Abel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

The other suspect, Gholam Shakuri, remained at large, CNN reported.

U.S. officials, aided by an undercover informant, arrested Arbabsiar on suspicion that he conspired with Shakuri, allegedly a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, to hire assassins from a Mexican drug cartel to detonate a bomb at a restaurant where Jubeir was going, an FBI agent's statement indicated.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said the accusations are groundless. Iranian media have said Shakuri is an operative of an exiled Iranian opposition group.

In an interview with CNN Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the alleged plot.

"Do we need really to kill the ambassador of a brotherly country? What is the reason and the interest behind that?" Ahmadinejad said. "We never have any intention to hurt Saudi Arabia. Do we really want to do it in the United States? And is that the way, really?"